Mr. Yaniv Amir brings over 20 years of experience in the emergency response market. Mr. Amir led a NENA NG911 committee and later founded Essence USA Inc. in 2012. In 2013, the Who's Who organization proclaimed Mr. Amir as the Executive of the year representing the Security Solutions Industry. Mr. Amir holds MSc and BA Summa Cum Laude degrees from the Reichman University. 

MELISSA ANDRESKO Chief Corporate Brand Ambassador, Lutron Electronics A 24-year company veteran, Melissa Andresko is Chief Brand Ambassador at Lutron Electronics, the world leader in smart lighting and smart shading control systems for residential and commercial spaces. A dynamic communications strategist, Melissa has spent most of her career driving the adoption of smart home products through various communications vehicles. She frequently appears on national and local news programs and podcasts as a smart home expert and speaks at multiple events and conferences annually, sharing her expertise in the areas of the smart home user experience and product adoption. In her role as Chief Corporate Brand Ambassador, Melissa serves as Lutron's company spokesperson and is responsible for corporate communications, including executive communications and employee communications, employee, customer, and media events, public relations, and celebrity and industry relations. Melissa was named "One of the Most Powerful Women in Consumer Technology" by Dealerscope magazine in 2018. In 2019, she was awarded the Women in Consumer Technology Legacy Award, citing her industry contributions spanning two decades, as well as CE Pro magazine's Masters Award. Melissa serves on the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) Executive Board and is a member of the CTA Board of Industry Leaders, Smart Home and Accessories Division Boards, and is a CTA Foundation Trustee. With a passion for mentoring and advancing women in the technology field, Melissa mentors women at all career levels to help them become the best version of themselves. Melissa holds bachelors' degree in journalism and political science from Moravian University in Bethlehem, PA. She and her husband, Ross Mabon, reside in Pennsylvania.

Steve is President and Co-Founder of Aided, Inc., a start-up venture focused on providing comprehensive remote monitoring and concierge services for the Aging-in-Place segment. Aided provides a full suite of 360-degree monitoring for Health/Safety/Security/Comfort, along with a community support network to help families navigate the difficult journey of providing support for aging loved ones. Prior to Aided he spent several years at AT&T and was a founding member of the Internet of Things (IoT) organization and built AT&T's Connected Health group which provided connectivity and integrated solutions to a wide variety of medical and health devices. This resulted in AT&T becoming an industry leader in the Connected Health ecosystem, while establishing AT&T as the market share leader for connectivity in the U.S. Under his leadership, AT&T also launched the AT&T Connected Health Innovations Center on the campus of the Texas Medical Center Innovations Institute, which provided resources and a collaborative environment for business partners to develop and quickly evaluate go-to-market solutions. Steve has also appeared as a keynote speaker and panelist at multiple Connected Health events and also served on several health and industry boards. Prior to his work in IoT, Steve also led business development efforts for new and emerging distribution opportunities for AT&T's MVNO market and AT&T Prepaid products, with the addition of over 50,000 points of distribution with major national retail organizations. Prior to AT&T, Steve was a marketing executive in the restaurant industry, leading marketing communications and field marketing for Hardee's Restaurants and Arby's. 

John Butrim serves as ADT’s Vice President of Multifamily, Builder and HOA and has more than 15 years of smart home and security experience. In this role, John is responsible for driving the vision, growth, and go-to-market of these three verticals.

Over the past 4 years, John has led the transformation of ADT Multifamily from enterprise security solutions to being a fully integrated smart home platform, capped off with the 2022 acquisition of IOTAS. The combination of IOTAS, and other ADT offerings like Solar, Commercial and Safe by ADT provides a safe, smart, and sustainable solution for Multifamily owners and operators. John received his B.A. in Marketing and Finance from Loyola University of Baltimore and his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Alex started his career as a research scientist for NASA, the Naval Research Lab, and Sandia National Lab. He later joined Fisker Automotive heading sustainability initiatives across design and engineering. In 2010 he left to launch At The Pool and Yeti, social apps reaching members in more than 120 countries. Alex has an engineering degree from UCLA, lives in Los Angeles, and likes to ski, bike, and skydive. 

Keally comes to solar with the conviction that carbon-neutral is the new black. She started in renewables as the Head of Marketing for the largest solar company in the Northeast before moving into marketing and public policy leadership roles at Sunrun and SunPower. As the National Organizing Director of The Alliance for Solar Choice (TASC), Fortune magazine described the netroots work she pioneered as radically changing political advocacy through digital technology. Prior to joining GAF Energy, she served as Head of Marketing at Mosaic. She has a BA from Brown University. Her favorite roof is the one she used to sit on as a kid, listening to the cicadas, outside her bedroom window in Southwest Ohio.

Mark Francis is Chief Digital Health Integration Officer for Electronic Caregiver, an innovative digital health company. Mark has 20+ years of experience as a product innovator for companies such as Amazon, Intel, Age Wave, and Health Hero Network. Mark is a graduate of Harvard and the University of Pittsburgh. He has been awarded 17 patents.

Jeff Holleran is VP Product for SAM Seamless Networks, the leading provider of cloud-native security and intelligence for unmanaged networks and IoTs. Jeff's leadership background features sales, product and GTM strategy roles for Kognitiv, BlackBerry, Sykes and GTE, where he developed expertise in translating cyber security into value added services for ISPs and their end users.

Mitch Karren is a co-founder and an Executive Vice President at SmartRent. He is currently responsible for setting and executing the global corporate development strategy for SmartRent's ecosystem of products, partnerships and services. He previously served as the Chief Product Officer where he additionally ran day to day product management and product marketing. Prior to SmartRent, he led the product team at Colony Starwood Homes (Acquired by Invitation Homes) where he designed and developed their end to end software platform. He also directed the first ever enterprise scale deployment of smart home systems in the rental industry, encompassing 25,000 homes across 15 states. Earlier in his career, he worked in real estate development, residential brokerage and property management. He holds a BS in Housing and Community Development from Arizona State University and is a Licensed Real Estate Broker in Arizona. 

Chris has spent the last 10 years driving residential product development and strategy for Schneider Electric in North America. His current focus is to simplify the complexity of incorporating renewable energy and energy storage into homes and developing digital tools to better manage energy usage. Passionate about solving the climate crisis, he is committed to ensuring our homes play a key role in a sustainable future.

Abe is responsible for the management of several Alarm.com solutions, including energy management, home automation, and security partner integrations. Since joining the company in 2012, he has worked across the service provider and customer experience areas to deliver dependable technology that connects people with the things they care about most.

Liz Kohler, Founder, Nexion Solutions, has more than 17 years of experience in product marketing, product development and communications in the personal emergency response and healthcare technology spaces. In addition, she has worked with domestic violence prevention organizations in the Milwaukee area, as well as in Victim Services within the District Attorney's Office in Milwaukee. 

Tray Leslie serves as the Manager of Renewable and Resiliency Customer Programs for Georgia Power Company. In this role, Tray leads a team responsible for the development and implementation of all customer renewable programs, distributed energy resources programs, residential and commercial solar analysis and interconnection of customer and company owned distributed energy resource projects.

Justin McKinney is an experienced business leader, entrepreneur, and innovator. He is currently the co-founder and CEO of Ivani, the technology company leading the Sensing as a Service model in IoT. As co-inventor of dozens of patents, Justin has successfully driven the innovation process at multiple companies through a focus on end-user wants and needs while balancing the trade-offs inherent to business operations. Justin holds a BA from Principia College and Executive MBA from Washington University in St Louis.

Lee Miller is currently serving as the vice president of sales for WhiteSky and Stratis, both RealPage companies, and is responsible for oversight and strategic direction of the smart building platform at RealPage. He oversees a global team of technical sales directors and solutions representatives. Prior to joining Stratis, Miller was a part of the Control4 Europe team. Based in London, he helped shape and define the sales strategies and teams within the EMEA Market, primarily focusing on single residential and multi-family technology.

Michelle serves as the Alliance’s Head of Marketing and Member Services, helping to both promote the Alliance mission, standards and solutions and drive the growth and success of IoT for the benefit of members, consumers and the marketplace at large. As an executive in the telecom, energy & professional services industries, she has built & lead teams across marketing, strategy, brand, customer experience, and go-to-market. Having worked in industry and in consulting for over 25 years, including time at AT&T, Capgemini and Microsoft, she brings a wealth of experience, perspectives, and a passion for the Alliance’s mission to build the foundation and the future of IoT. Michelle received her BA from Miami University (Ohio), her MBA in Strategy & Organizational Behavior from the University of Chicago and is currently a Visiting Scholar at CDAIT, the IoT Research Center at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband, a personal trainer and Strongman competitor.

Mehul Patel is the CEO at Minim, Inc., an AI-driven IoT so;ftware solutions developer and creator of hardware products sold under the Motorola brand. An accomplished, highly motivated global business leader, Mehul possesses an exceptional record of building competitive and profitable businesses through strong financial management. His career spans more than 22 years of varied experience in financial management, business leadership, supply chain and operations, and corporate strategy.

Prior to his appointment as CEO, Mehul served as CFO of the company, overseeing all financial functions, including accounting, auditing, treasury, corporate finance and investor relations.

Before joining Minim, Patel was Vice President of Supply Chain Finance & Transformation for Verifone, a ~$1.6B FinTech company that provides end-to-end payment and commerce solutions to global retail brands, major financial institutions and over 600,000 merchants worldwide. His efforts translated into annual savings of over $5M per year for the company.

Prior to his time at Verifone, Patel rose through the ranks of Motorola, starting as Senior Accountant and progressing to Finance Director for the Telecom Consumer Premise Equipment (CPE) business unit, assuming primary responsibility for P&L and financial operations for ~$1.6B in revenue worldwide.
During his 18 years at Motorola, he was a part of over six acquisitions and saw the company’s name change from Motorola Home to Motorola Mobility, a Google Company, to ARRIS and in 2019 to CommScope. The company grew during those years through organic and accretive growth from ~$2B to ~$7B.

Mehul earned a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in Accounting with a concentration in Management Information Systems (MIS) from The Pennsylvania State University. He lives in the Philadelphia area, along with his wife and two boys.
 

Kevin Po is a group product manager on the Google Nest team. His focus area includes smart home technologies and is Google's product lead for the Matter initiative. He previously held a variety of engineering leadership roles within Nest and Google. Kevin also serves as Google's representative on the Board of Directors for the Connectivity Standards Alliance and is also Google's alternate board representative for the Thread Group.

Kevin Po is a group product manager on the Google Nest team. His focus area includes smart home technologies and is Google's product lead for the Matter initiative. He previously held a variety of engineering leadership roles within Nest and Google. Kevin also serves as Google's representative on the Board of Directors for the Connectivity Standards Alliance and is also Google's alternate board representative for the Thread Group.

Mike is the CEO at Dwelo (dwell-oh). Dwelo provides smart apartments to the owners and managers of multifamily communities. Prior to Dwelo, Mike led Infisense. An internet of things startup for measuring and verifying energy savings in buildings. Mike also worked as a consultant at ERS, where he helped commercial real estate owners invest in energy efficiency.

Atul Singh is General Manager of Digital Health at LG NOVA, a new Silicon Valley based innovation center of LG Electronics, where he leads strategy, execution and delivery of digital health solutions in several healthcare verticals. Atul has been in the healthcare industry for 25 years focusing on developing technology-enabled products and services that improve patient health and create value. He holds a master's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Missouri - Columbia and is a regular presenter at digital health events.

Jen Theobold, currently Director of Strategic Partnerships at Rapid Response Monitoring, has been in the security industry for over 15 years. Her experience is comprehensive and includes development in Sales, Business Development, Product Management, Strategy, as well as Mergers and Acquisitions.

Jen has held strategic roles at Bold Technologies, Rapid Response Monitoring, Milestone Systems, Axis Communications and Comcast Business before returning to Rapid Response in her current role.

Her guideposts in the development of her career have provided a perspective focusing on corporate future, industry evolution, market trends and culture development… an organizational roadmap to success.  

Razvan Todor is a Product and Business Management Leader with over 15 years of software industry experience. He is currently the Vice President of the B2B2C division at Bitdefender, a global security technology company that serves over 500 million us-ers in over 150 countries with cybersecurity solutions and advanced threat protection services. Since joining the company, Razvan has held several key management positions at Bitdefender, focusing on both business and consumers. For the past five years, he has overseen or been directly involved in the launch of Bitdefender's top-tier B2C and B2B2C products, such as Bitdefender BOX and the Bitdefender IoT Security Plat-form, as well as co-branded solutions such as NETGEAR Armor powered by Bitde-fender. His current mission is to build and expand Bitdefender's technological reach through strategic partnerships with industry leaders in the IoT and smart home cyber-security markets.

Eric Villines is the head of global communications at Anker Innovations, a Chinese unicorn company and the world's number one mobile charging brand. An author and award-winning communications strategist with over 25 years of experience work-ing across various industries, such as entertainment, consumer electronics, profes-sional services, and finance, his work has been recognized with numerous PR and marketing awards, including the PRSA Silver Anvil, Mercury Award, Stevie Award, The Holmes Report SABRE Award, and more.

Andrew Vloyanetes has spent the last 20 years in consumer electronics working in both B2C and B2B environments. Currently, he is the General Manager for the Installed Solutions business at Ring, overseeing the go-to-market strategy and execution for the entire Pro Installer business globally, including the custom installer vertical, security vertical, and National Homebuilder vertical. Prior to this role, he spent 10 years at Sonos working across multiple disciplines including sales, marketing, training, and business development. At Sonos, Vloyanetes was given the creative freedom to help lead the future direction of the company, including overseeing the team that manages the Works with Sonos platform, which allows Sonos to partner with thought leaders in the connected home industry on a product and go-to-market level. Andrew has a true passion for IoT products and utilizing them to improve the lives of users and, at Ring, he's able to embrace this passion to work toward the compan's mission of making neighborhoods safer.

Adam Weinstein is an Executive Sales Manager at sonnen, where he oversees sales across multiple channels and geographies. His passion for sustainable building practices and emerging technology fuels his success in the workplace where he helps solve complex energy problems and moves a growing base of people toward energy independence. Prior to sonnen, Adam began his career in Information Technology at Lutron Electronics and found his true calling in renewable energy, transitioning into sales with SolarCity/Tesla and ultimately sonnen in 2017. Adam lives in Colorado where he enjoys snowboarding and live music in his free time.

Ian Wheelock is an Engineering Fellow in CommScope's Home Network CTO team. He has been part of broadband industry since 1999 and has helped architect and deliver numerous networking platforms and CPE products over that time. His extensive background in development and innovation helps to drive CommScope's newest networking solutions, while also engaging with customers on technology directions, standards and innovations. Ian's recent work areas include new Wi-Fi options, virtualisation and containerisation, DOCSIS, xPON, FWA,and IOT as well as key software aspects of platforms including software stacks (RDK, prplOS, OpenWrt), rap service and network management. Ian also represents CommScope in standards groups such as CableLabs, Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA), Broadband Forum (BBF), SCTE/SCTE-EU and the Wi-Fi Alliance. He is also a member of the prpl Foundation since 2016, and was recently voted on the prpl Foundation Board of Directors. 

Paul Williams is a visionary leader with a proven track record of leading organizations to high-growth results through building teams with clear objectives and support of the overall vision. Paul's career spans startups to Fortune 500 companies. Paul joined Nice North America in 2022, where he serves as the Chief Product Officer. In this role he leads product management teams and develops the product road map across all brands. Paul excels at aligning real world problems and anticipating customer needs to create unique and innovative solutions. Paul previously served as GE Lighting's GM of Product Management and Growth where he was charged with reimagining lighting solutions. In three years, Paul's team created a DIY smart home ecosystem with innovative products and scaled the consumer mobile app, taking it from just 30,000 users to more than 2 million. During his 14+ years of executive leadership at Control4, a manufacturer of smart home solutions, he was instrumental in building the company from a startup to IPO with double-digit, year-over-year growth.

Since 2015, Alex has been in charge of business operations, international marketing, and global business expansion, and he is directly responsible for the growth of Tuya U.S Headquarters. Before Tuya, Alex held several management roles at Alibaba. He was responsible for marketing, channel management, and operations in several corporate strategic business units, including e-commerce cloud, cloud OS, and mobile payments. Alex has more than a decade of experience in international operations and digital marketing for the internet and manufacturing industry.

INDUSTRY EXPERTISE: Consumer electronics, mobility services and devices, connected health and wellness

Kristen Hanich heads Parks Associates' consumer electronics and mobility research, with expertise in other verticals including connected cars, mobile networking, healthcare, wellness, and independent living. She leads a mix of custom and syndicated research projects throughout the year, with a focus on major players and emerging trends. Kristen specializes in bridging the gap between data-driven and narrative approaches to understanding the consumer markets via a mix of qualitative and quantitative research approaches.

Kristen has dual master's degrees in applied anthropology and public health from the Universities of North Texas in Denton and Fort Worth. She earned her BSc in health at the University of Texas at San Antonio and has a graduate certificate in Geographic Information Systems.

Back To Top

INDUSTRY EXPERTISE: Connected Health, Connected Home Technologies and Services, Connected Entertainment Products and Services

Jennifer manages the research department and Parks Associates' process for producing high-quality, relevant, and meaningful research. Jennifer also leads and advises on syndicated and custom research projects across all connected consumer verticals and guides questionnaire development for Parks Associates’ extensive consumer analytics survey program. Jennifer is a certified focus group moderator, with training from the Burke Institute.

Jennifer earned her PhD in religion, politics, and society and an MA in church-state studies from Baylor University. She earned her BA in politics from the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.

Elizabeth leads the marketing team and supports the research and operations teams. Elizabeth manages and directs the integrated strategic communications plan for Parks Associates, including advertising, public relations, and marketing campaigns for research and events hosted by Parks Associates. Elizabeth is the key organizer for all of Parks Associates' events, including CONNECTIONS™. She also supports Parks Associates' Business Development Team with prospective client searches, overall support, and maintenance of Parks Associates' databases.

Elizabeth joined Parks Associates on a full-time basis in 1998 after graduating from the University of Texas at Austin with a BA in psychology.

Chris is a Senior Researcher with Parks Associates, covering the connected home market. He was previously a Director of Insights at PeopleMetrics in Philadelphia and the Data Manager of a youth-serving collaborative in New Orleans. He has performed research for companies in a variety of industries, including the telecom/ISP space.

Chris earned his BBA in Marketing from the College of William & Mary and his MBA in Marketing and Finance from American University.